


If You Loved Me, Why'd You Leave Me?

by thenopetrain



Series: Season 3 flights of fancy [1]
Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Brief Mentionings of Violence, F/M, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I was a mess, Major character death - Freeform, idk what else to tag that episode got to me, some speculation for future episodes, spoilers through 3.18
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-05-09
Packaged: 2018-06-02 15:07:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6570904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thenopetrain/pseuds/thenopetrain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot set after 3.18. SPOILERS throughout, if you haven't caught up yet. Some speculation for future episodes. Red deals with what has happened.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own anything of the blacklist.
> 
> So Thursday was nuts. SPOILERS for the new episode of you haven't seen it but honestly, the news is everywhere so...but yeah that episode still has my feelings in a puddle on the floor, so I this me working that out haha
> 
> this fic is inspired by "All I Want" by Kodaline, so I suggest y'all listen to that. It's amazing. Also, "Pray" by Kodaline. Ugh. I think I'm just adding to my own angst here hope you guys enjoy!

 

Cradling the last remaining link to her, smiling, cherishing the moments before an inevitable, inner battle. _Take her and go_. Like before. That choice that seemed a lot more difficult after he'd made it. A different kind of fire raging. A different mother and child. _I don't want that for her._ There is a kind of breathlessness in relinquishing Agnes back to Tom. For a moment, gut clenched in nauseous desolation for the memory of letting go, his arms tighten a little when the soft,

"Can I have her back now?" Comes out of the man's mouth. It brings him to Kate telling him to leave, to him inhaling the smell of her one more time, to kissing her hands, her palm, to feeling the warmth of her as long as he can manage it. _The police are here_. Giving Agnes back, when her slight weight feels infinitely right in his arms, is like he's tearing a part of himself off; a callous, visceral sensation that leaves him scrambling for a place to moor himself in this intrepid storm of loss. Tom is looking at him, wary and on edge, vacillating between the distrust that still sits between them and this tentative connection they share: the daughter of the woman they loved.

"I know you probably want to get away from all of this," _From me. From the situation I put you in. From the danger I brought down upon Lizzie and Agnes. From all of it._ "But, please let me help you protect Agnes." His voice is like nails in his throat, a temptation to remove Tom from the equation sitting on the edge of his mind, that he can do better this time around. All the selfish desires and ideas of a man raw from ultimate failure.

"The threat's not over."

"No."

A small, quiet reckoning infiltrates the tiny surgical room where Lizzie had been alive and breathing. The place where he'd last seen her eyes and heard her voice and felt the strength in her hand. It's exhausting and, like a blind man holding a wilted flower for ignorance of its decay, he cannot bring himself to suggest they part with this space that had kept her, well and warm, for a time.

In their heavy silence, secure in this sanctuary, it's the noises of Lizzie's daughter that bring their temporary peace crashing down again. Red looks at Agnes's little face as she fusses, a tiny cry that sets his nerves on edge; distress forming in his chest again. She squirms in Tom's arms, and the younger man looks at Red with tears in his eyes again, the men knowing they can't give her who she wants.

* * *

All I want is nothing more

Than to hear you knocking at my door

'Cause if I could see your face once more

I could die a happy man I'm sure

* * *

That night is fraught with restless grief, a sense of loss so enormous the globe could not encompass it.

He came in with the emptiness of his life. Gruff and all sharp edges. _Leave me alone._ It's a message riddled in every contour of his face, in his bloodshot eyes, in the disheveled mess of his appearance. An argument with Tom, a discussion with Nick, the inevitable descent into a grief so deep he lost all semblance of where the lines were drawn; blew in like a tornado and left a wreckage in his wake.

A grieving heart knows little in the ways of prudence. Too much sleep. Not enough sleep. Too much alcohol. None at all. Eat too much. Skip meals for tea and random snacks Dembe makes him eat because there's a stone in his stomach and nausea seems to be that stone's best friend. Shower or don't, like it'll make moving on seem a fool's paradise, to wake him and keep sleep at bay for one day more.

There was nothing for him to do as he fought off sleep as though it were Death itself. Somewhere in his chest, a demon was digging a torturous hole and every sip of scotch that burned his throat wouldn't take away the ache. Nothing would fill it, save those brief moments when Agnes would come to mind, and then it was a tug-o-war with repeating past mistakes and leaving them for someone else to bear.

Let someone else eat up the sins of Tom Keen. Let them go. Let them be. Let Lizzie... _let Lizzie what?_ Let her memory rest in what ever plan Tom had formulated? A risk, even with all the nonnegotiables Tom had tried to set during their last conversation. The same mistakes. The same regrets. He was confident, even if he assisted in Agnes's life, that nothing could fill that hole in him; burned away with an acidic and awful truth.

Without the strength to do much else, he'd sat up in this chair all night and obsessed over details of reality where all it boiled down to was that he didn't try hard enough. _Don't go, Lizzie._ Louder. He should have been louder. He should have removed her from that church immediately. He could have had a team take her out the back, a side door, blown the place apart to get her and the baby someplace safe.

 _Please. Please, don't go_. If he'd asked her when she was awake. If he'd listened to her months ago. If he'd told her the truth. If he had, just once, made the effort to level with her instead of running with the idea that she'd be safer in the dark. His light...kept in the dark, an endless night he now waded through without hope of ever seeing the sun rise again.

The middle of the night finds him in weak moments of rushing to the bathroom. Where it's just the echo of Nick calling her time of death. Where that awful, dropping silence resounds from the ambulance, when her body had grown so horribly still, and into the room where he sits. It's sounds of retching until his hands are shaking and his under shirt is soaked through with sweat.

It's passing out and waking with a start for the remnants of a nightmare whose entire meaning is just out of reach like an itch he can't scratch or traffic he knows will start crawling again but he's not sure he can take this speed for much longer without going insane and maybe he should just exit the freeway...and then there's water and boats and thoughts of drowning, flames and screams, ghosts with eyes that he remembers peering at him, ready to devour him with all their truths and secrets and blood and bullets and murder.

* * *

When you said your last goodbye

I died a little bit inside

I lay in tears in bed all night

Alone without you by my side

* * *

His body is a pile of rubble in this chair. Staring into nothing for hours. Sound, the light of dawn edging in through the window behind him, the kiss of sunlight against the back of his head is meaningless. He closes his eyes for a moment, unwilling to see the shadow cast out in front of him. The first night without her has passed him by in an agony that feels as though it lasted a week.

"Raymond." His eyes focus on the bag Dembe has dropped at his feet. He looks up, a feeble tilt of his head back against the chair, and sees the glass of water in his friend's hand. He takes it, not sure if he should be worried by the steadiness of his hands or grateful, and accepts the aspirin with a quiet thank you. The emptiness of his stomach and the gulp of water nearly collide in a violent way, but it settles after another sip or two.

Off in the shadows that still hug the interior doors of the room, Kate's slight figure wavers and then steps further into this odd sanctuary. Red's attention falls to her with a steeled expression, recalling her quiet reassurances in a different place, at a different time, when he'd failed her team with the same deftness that he'd failed Elizabeth. _You won't lose her._ Look how wrong they were.

"You're going to go clear your head, Raymond." He swallows thickly and realizes that the sound of his name is suddenly an irritant to him as the sunlight gets brighter and warmer and more oppressive. _Raymond, I do love..._ "Everything has been taken care of. Our people are taking ever measure to do as you asked." Elizabeth's funeral. The burial plot he'd...a long time ago. A long, long time ago. He just never thought that he'd outlive her use of it. "But until then..."He looks away from her and to Dembe. _Go. Clear your head. Stop this before it stops you._

* * *

But If you loved me

Why'd you leave me?

Take my body

Take my body

All I want is

And all I need is

To find somebody

I'll find somebody like you

* * *

So he does.

He goes to a place where all of his ghosts seem to reside. Any given day, they remain there, and he, having done so before, abides in grief.

Fate unfolds around him by way of a woman that has commandeered this sacred place for her own standoff. Tides pull him into the fray again, a battle that isn't his. The irony twists and ravages him deep where there is barely anything left to ravage. He tells her of his mistakes. The story of how he became this... _thing_.

There is nothing to try and mend when it, it seems, whatever it is, was broken long ago. A memory he never entirely grappled with. A chapter in life that never had any closure. Staring out at the sea, he's aware that he isn't altogether there. That pieces of him don't connect, and chunks of minutes go missing without his permission. He plays the piano, a cathartic gesture that only serves to exhaust him; a marathon of emotion he'll never stop running. When the music stops, the notes coming to a final end, he abandons the instrument, feeling for all the world as though it has mangled him somehow.

The sweet, sad notes, which, after a time, when the sun begins to set and the air becomes crisp, begin to play on their own draw him back into the room. A different melody; a swelling verse of inner determination and the falling baritone of dread, of war yet to come. It's her, this _coincidence_ that enlisted his help, playing. This stranger, this woman, stares at him sometimes, seems afraid of him during others, and he only catches her staring off on her own the once before, true to the form of his life, everything goes to hell. 

But this time, he doesn't fail entirely.

* * *

So you brought out the best of me

A part of me I've never seen

You took my soul and wiped it clean

Our love was made for movie screens

* * *

Kate said it had been a beautiful ceremony. That Aram had quoted him at the graveside. He's standing there, now, the fresh sent of soil cloying the air. Before it, before the immovable name fate has set in stone, he feels as though he has crumbled into the rubble he'd told Aram that he'd found himself reduced to, and wonders if anything can become of the toppled when the basis of living, that brick and mortar, has been yanked away so permanently. What he wouldn't give to see her again. _How life loses all meaning when my heart is gone from it._

"Agnes won't suffer my presence in her life." He knows his voice is thick, knows the unsteadiness of its tone, can feel it waver with the slight wobble of his chin. "I promise you, Lizzie."

It's a rigid, callous determination he feels when he walks away from her grave. He should have never come into her life. And now, he would make sure he didn't with Agnes. Mr. Kaplan had somehow gotten through to Tom in a way he never would have been able to, working her magic to give the baby up for adoption. Tom was hell bent on going after Solomon, to seek revenge upon the man that stopped Liz's convoy and, ultimately, her life. The news of a family vetted by Kate, unknown to Red upon his request, finally came to him, and he accepted it with just a silent, regretful nod. He doesn't say goodbye to her, that same sensation from the day of Elizabeth's death creeping back into his limbs. To say goodbye to the last piece of Lizzie would undo what ever was left whole within him.

An old nemesis comes back into the picture and Red forgets the good that Elizabeth brought into his life. He's been let loose in ways he didn't think himself possible. Piece after piece of himself is wiped away, body after body felled in this new stage of battle; a siege that he can't see an end to. Tom gets sucked into a life away from the war he'd tried to get Lizzie to see the magnitude of, away from everyone, away from Agnes, away from...him. A woman, a spy, Tom called her Scottie, and Red had gotten wind of her, sent Cooper and the team after her while he continued to deal with Alexander.

It's going on two months since they buried her, and one sleepless night too many finds Red forcibly seated in a chair by Dembe, who looks from him to the cut on his cheek, to the blood seeping through the slashed material on his left arm. He wasn't quick enough. A misstep and his attacker's swipe had gotten his bicep, his face, until Red had been able to overpower the man by sheer force. Truth was, with the adrenaline pumping through him, the ache in his arm, the stinging of the cut on his face, this was the most alive he'd felt since-

"You can't go on like this, Raymond." It's a conversation Red's been dodging for a week now. His reaction time is slower. His sleep patterns worse than ever. He hasn't been eating much. Focused, so focused, on fighting and doing nothing else until fate decided that his number was up.

"I know." Quiet and honest, though he thinks that might be the point. _He_ _can't do this much longer._ At what time would his ragged body give up and beg of him, _no more_? Did he have to force that moment? Would it even come with his knowing? He'd always been so prepared for his own death, embracing it with a whisper of her name, his last good thing, and then surrender. But her death...his folly...

"Kate is nearly here." At some point, Dembe had stitched his arm up without him giving much notice to his friend's doctoring, and barely nods at Kate's imminent arrival. She'd swoop in like she always did, fuss over him in her way, the chilliness having vanished between them a week prior, and she'd get him to function again. But, until then, he'd drift into thoughts of Elizabeth, picturing her that day in the theater they'd been hiding out in.

Swaying with the dress clutched to her, reciting her fantasy. He'd place her there, Agnes in her arms, in the park, on the beach, in the family room of her apartment...smiling, laughing, getting mad at him, frustrated again and again. Mundane images that cut through him with beautiful precision.

There's a distant knock at the door, and he's drawn out of his thoughts enough to notice that Dembe hesitates, that his brother looks over to him once before he leaves to answer the door. It's then that Red hangs his head a little, sucking in a breath to armor himself against _more_ care and _more_ compassion. He is so tired of everything. He thought he could do it, for a time, that this exhaustion of the heart would leave him like it did before, but it hasn't.

And he doesn't think he can grieve that long again. Doesn't know if he's strong enough for another round. _If only these people would let him ruin himself..._ the pain wouldn't have lasted this long. The sorrow wouldn't be far from ending. He hears Kate's voice calling to him as he stands, stiffly, his left hand disappearing into his pocket so he doesn't have to put much effort into moving the injured arm. Dembe must have given him a local, or he's already so burned out that pain is a distant fog registered in the deep recesses of his mind.

He turns and his stomach drops, his heart suddenly in his throat. Kate is standing in the hall just off the foyer with an expression that he's seen a few dozen times before. Namely, when she'd relayed Josephine's prognosis to him. When she'd told him that Newton's family hadn't taken the news well. It was the face she'd greeted him with when Marcus's men shot and killed her cleaning crew. He takes in a sharp breath.

"What is it?" There's a slight shake of his head, a numbness in his brain for any more tragedy. Cooper's team? Baz? Mr. Kaplan remains by the edge of the wall for a moment before she steps into the room and regards him with tears gathering in her eyes.

"Raymond," Bite the bullet. What ever was coming, it couldn't possibly be good. Not with this slow, choking pace. "When my girls were killed and Marcus's men spared me, I knew our paths had diverged. We didn't have the deal with the devils we once did. I was no longer untouchable." Red means to take a step forward, but his legs won't budge, won't move as he bids, and so he simple grips the back of the chair he'd been sitting on with his right hand; a crutch, a thing to prop him up.

"Dembe wasn't untouchable, his daughter, his granddaughter-" He feels that punching effect he'd felt when she'd blamed him, outright, for Lizzie's predicament during her labor, and before Kate can get another word out, he cuts her off with a sharp,

"Spare me the guilt trip, Kate. I'm doing the best-"

"That is _not_ the point, Raymond, and you know it." His mouth is open slightly, a mixture of frustration and hurt crossing his face. Chest heaving, he indicated for her to continue and contemplates sitting back down in the chair. "I've put my own security measures in place because I won't be fooled again, and those security measures were an enormous risk, but I need you to remember the moments I just spoke of." _You had us all fooled._

"I remember _every_ failure on my part, every betrayal, every sacrifice, every _death_. I'm well aware that it's all on me." His heart feels as though it will beat out of his chest. He can't believe he has to tell her this, not when she'd so explicitly stayed with him countless times before and told him what he'd needed to get through the night, the day, the week. When Carla had been abducted, when Lizzie had started to resist all forms of help after she'd gotten pregnant, when she'd been beaten half to death on a parking lot by some low life.

"Okay," is all she says in reply before she looks down the hall where he can't see and gives a small, reassuring nod.

* * *

But If you loved me

Why'd you leave me?

Take my body

Take my body

All I want is

And all I need is

To find somebody

I'll find somebody

* * *

He's closed his eyes against the image of her, clenched his jaw, and bid the ache in the back of his throat away. Light and floating, a weightlessness that accompanies the roaring in his ears, makes him grip the back the chair harder. Something sturdy to hold onto when she'd appeared around the corner of the wall. Something real. Something to ground him. He swallows around the rage, the disbelief, the undeniable gratefulness deep inside of him that bubbles up as if to choke him.

Moments pass with the quiet anticipation of familiar footsteps.

The cool touch of her hand against his cheek, the gentle brush of her thumb over the cut there. Mirrored against the limp and lifeless clutching he'd done in the back of that van, her strength is real when he turns his face, just slightly, into her palm.

Inhale.

Exhale a ragged sound from the back of his throat.

"Raymond?" His eyes are full of her own; blue and depth-less and shining. He extracts his hand from his pocket, thankful, that Dembe had seen to his injury before this moment, and brings it up to cup the back of her hand so he might press it to his face just a little harder; lips reaching to kiss her alive and awake as he did when he thought her dead and gone forever. _This last goodbye, our first hello._ His other hand has relinquished its hold on the chair, that death grip from before no longer enough to hold him up. He needs her. He needs to hold her. And in a swift motion, an echo of the moment of hesitation outside the courthouse after she'd been released, they crash into each other.

Amid _I'm sorry's_ and the sound of her name from the back of his throat, those choking sounds of relief and soul-binding joy, he has gathered her into himself with all the fierce gentleness of his love. She clings to him in much the same way; arms wrapped around and holding tight. . _..Don't go. Please, don't go_. It's quieter than most, this moment of theirs, and he absorbs everything about her all over again. He turns his face into her hair, burying it in the nape of her neck, and inhales around shaking breaths of a world made right.

She pulls away from him, and he obliges her with a resolve blossoming within him. Words jumble together and he marvels at her; drawing up a hand to replace the hair that's fallen into her face back behind her ear. There is nothing about her that he has forgotten. Every detail. Every slight facial movement. The way her eyes crinkle when she smiles. How she tries to hold back her tears with a brave face. Compelled to beg forgiveness, compelled towards some undying action to seal them together, feeling as though he is floating, a sort of blissful shock setting in, he grasps at small words with larger, more profound, promises.

"Lizzie, I'm-" She shakes her head and he can feel his brow furrow; her expression effectively cutting him off. She brings her hands up to his face, runs a thumb over his bottom lip, a serious, almost sorrowful look on her face, studying the way he frowns, before she meets his eyes again as if to say, _what have you done to yourself?_

And it isn't a moment later that she's leaning towards him to place a soft kiss on his lips.

* * *

If you loved me

Why'd you leave me?

Take my body

Take my body

All I want is

All I need is

To find somebody

I'll find somebody like you


	2. I Found pt.1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For disclaimer see chapter one. Okay I wasn't going to do another chapter but...I just started writing and what started as more for my other stories, morphed into more for this supposed one-shot. Hope you like it! The song I used for this chapter was "I Found" by Amber Run. Y'all should check this band out, too, if you haven't. They're fantastic.

Watching Red get his feet back under him is a special kind of torture. He'd milled around the house all night, silent, always keeping her and Kaplan in the corner of his eye; awake still in spite of, clearly, not getting enough sleep. She sees the signs of that awful restlessness; how having stayed up too long becomes a compulsion, as though he's missed his window, that exhausted two or three hours early in the evening when you know you should sleep but it's far too early, and it doesn't feel normal. Especially when normal requires the routine wrestling of the demons that flare up in the dead hours of the night.

She has Agnes in her arms when she wanders into the study that Red had resigned himself to an hour ago. Dembe had suggested a break after Red and Kaplan had begun a silent battle of wills not long after Liz had kissed him. He'd seemed in such a state of shock that she was afraid to let go of him when Agnes had started to fuss. She finds him pacing, one hand in his pocket, the other gripping a mostly full glass of amber liquid.

He's changed. The bloodied shirt from before has been switched out for a crisp, white replica under an unbuttoned vest that leaves her a little disappointed. _Still hiding._ A small part of her concedes to the fact that she deserves his wariness. _He's been running himself ragged ever since._ She looks to the tumbler on the coffee table, stopper in place, and he takes note of her scrutiny with a hoarse,

"Habit," as if it's funny, as if it's comforting, as if this whole night isn't out of the ordinary. _We've dragged this on for too long, I didn't expect him to-_. She hadn't been privy to Mr. Kaplan's plan, but she'd understood the woman. For the first week or two, though secluded, she lived in the relative safety of someone who knew normalcy; away from Tom, from Reddington, from the task force, from the name Rostova.

_I'm afraid for my baby._

She lets him fidget under her scrutiny until he sets the full glass down on top of the desk near the window. She hoists her daughter into her arms a little more, with the slightest movement of careful consideration for the little one's head; she's finally, _blessedly_ asleep. Motherhood had come naturally to Liz, who wondered if she'd have it in her, if she would fail like her mother, her father, like Red had with his family. But when she'd awoken and Agnes was placed back in her arms, everything had fallen into place. She'd had help, of course, but, like most things in her life, she'd been a quick study.

"Come on," she turns her head over her shoulder a little to motion in the direction she wants him to follow her, and she slowly makes her way from the study as if he might not come with her. But having her out of sight again seems to be the last thing on his mind, and he follows her with a cloud of apprehension settling over his features. He looks drawn by the time they make it to his bedroom; aged years and years from the small trip. Perhaps the knife wound had been more serious than she'd assumed, and this fatigue wasn't just from emotional turmoil and upheaval.

Her things are cluttered near the end of the bed, a crib set up just a little ways from the window, an eastern facing room where the sunlight might filter in and warm the space. But Liz doesn't move to settle Agnes into the crib. She looks to Red, whose hands have remained in his pockets, his eyes roaming over her and Agnes's things as though his brain won't quite allow him to put two and two together.

_God, he looks tired._ And while faking her death hadn't been her idea, Liz was still complicit in Red's suffering, and her heart aches imagining the feeling of betrayal he might be experiencing tonight. _How could we do this to him?_ She'd tried to tell herself two days ago, when Kaplan had come to her with a broken resolve, that he brought this upon himself. _I keep my promises, dearie._

That his refusal to share her own life's story with her would still be there. That his protectiveness would still know little in the way of boundaries. That Agnes would be brought into the very thing Liz had wanted to get so far away from. That his brand of danger was too much for anyone to handle. And yet, the more she watched Mr. Kaplan's steady conviction in their plan die as the weight of keeping their secret grew, she knew he didn't deserve this. _How dare we…_ and the fact that he hadn't even spoken against the decision, yet, means he believes he deserved it on some level; that it was somehow a just punishment for what he's done in his life.

"Hold her while I change?" Her voice falls into a question because commanding him to do it rang of her callous and misplaced cruelty after Agnes had been delivered. She can still picture how his face had fallen, but now it seems in stark contrast to that. His lips twitch with a smile, and she swears she sees his breath catch. Liz thinks it's going to be awkward, handing Agnes over without waking her, but Red steps forward, and before Liz can move to meet him in the middle, he has lifted her baby girl into his arms with practiced ease.

Agnes seems to fit there, her face turned into his unbuttoned vest _. I forgot he-_ She has to turn away from him when she watches the look on his face as he beholds Agnes asleep in his arms; vision blurring and throat clogging with guilt. Walking to the bathroom, she thinks that her life's memoir could be dedicated to explaining the many ways in which one might break a monster into a thousand tiny pieces.

* * *

I'll use you as a warning sign  
That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind  
And I'll use you as a focal point  
So I don't lose sight of what I want  
And I've moved further than I thought I could  
But I miss you more than I thought I would  
And I'll use you as a warning sign  
That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind

* * *

This is not a monster.

This man who has fallen asleep in the plush armchair in the corner of the bedroom with Agnes asleep on his chest.

His right hand resting just a bit on her back.  
This infamous criminal lulled to vulnerability by the peaceful solace of a baby trusting him to hold her while she sleeps.  
This protector of hers whose armor has slipped away to reveal a sort of dinged up caretaker with soft eyes and a quiet adoration for that which he holds.

_You think your life is too dangerous for a baby, but what is your life without one?_

The closer she gets, the more aware she is of the silence in the room: the soft sounds of her bare feet against the hardwood floor, her breathing mingling with the steadiness of Red's and her daughter's. Just when she's, maybe, three steps from him, wondering how to wake him or if she should, the floor creaks beneath her and Red's uninjured arm wraps just a little tighter around Agnes's back; his body drawing in on itself as if he's ready to jump up in a way that will accommodate the baby he's guarding.

"Sorry," She whispers as she closes the distance between them. He blinks at her with bloodshot eyes and she tilts her head, trying to read him and failing miserably. If anything, he seems startled and disoriented, as though his brain weighs ten-thousand pounds.

"Lizzie?" The word is garbled by what appears to be a dry mouth, his eyes widening just a little as he takes in Agnes asleep on his chest; finally grounding himself in what appears to be a sleepy confusion. His face has paled enough to make him look as haggard as he appeared to her when she walked in that first time. Alarmed by his glassy stare, the slight hitch to his breathing, Liz takes another step forward to bring herself just to the right of the chair.

"It's okay," She's lowered her voice, a suggestion to him by way of example as she watches Agnes's face scrunch up a little. _A sentiment for the both of them_. She crouches down beside him, reaching to smooth the back of her fingers against the wrinkle in her daughter's brow; a method of hush and soothing. It's after the baby calms, face falling lax as she resumes her peaceful slumbering, that she notices the slight jostling of Agnes's head on his chest. She lets her hand fall so that it's resting over Red's pounding heart above her daughter's head. Its furious rhythm only further indicates the emotions she'd seen a few moments ago, and Liz lifts her eyes to his.

He's drowsy, and horribly wilted from her vantage point, but she sees all the things she knows about him in his expression, and also a few newer, starker traits. Staring at her, as though he is watching a conversation they aren't having unfold, she finds something fragile about him that makes it hard to breathe. _How many apologies will be enough?_

Between the both of them, he's always been better at apologizing. He's better at knowing when to say it, when to remedy what he's done, when speaking is appropriate. At times, he's infuriatingly good at withholding pertinent information when he deems it too much for her. _When to be selfish and when to give and how much._ She watches him blink and his heartbeat hasn't slowed beneath her touch.

She stands, her hand trailing to his left on the way up to give it a little squeeze. He leans his head back against the chair and she can't say how long the two of them stare at one another; letting themselves wade in the quiet of the moment. _There will be time to clutter the space between us with words._ In the morning, when reality has truly set in for him and he has questions, when he decides how to feel anything other than the continued mesh of shock, joy, and sorrow.

The silence follows after him as he rises, a wince pulling at his features that makes her place a steadying hand on his back; conscious of the stitches on his bicep beneath the fabric of his shirt. She feels a shiver tense his muscles beneath her hand, and she remains rooted beside the chair as she watches him make his way to the bed with Agnes.

Liz has experienced so much of Red this last year, as a man, that she catches herself staring too long; forging old memories, confirming her knowledge of him. It hasn't been so long that she's forgotten, but the comfort of his familiar is overwhelming. How many writers in history have said that one of the most profound ways people can know one another is by looking? How many songs? How many artists? And in knowing him, she knows that this slightly hunched man sitting at the edge of the bed with her baby against his chest, glancing at her with uncertainty and expectation, has not stopped grieving since she left his side.

_By my estimations, he's lost too much weight too fast, he isn't sleeping, his habits have gotten substantially worse, he's…_

Violent.

Unstable.

Broken.

Lost…

_That's what I see when I look at you: my way home._

Criticizing the way he grieves is the last thing on her mind, but that question she'd posed silently to him earlier, that moment when she'd taken his face in her hands and quieted him in the dining room, is back. _What have you done to yourself, Raymond?_ Mr. Kaplan had painted a bleak picture of who he'd been in the weeks since her magic trick, and seeing him in this setting only confirms it. There's an immense tidal wave of sorrow between them, pushing against her, distancing her, and she doesn't know how to act. _Where do I put my hands, my eyes, my feet, my lips…_ He tilts his head at her, and she shakes her head, unable to handle the concern blooming on his face.

"Don't you want to change?" The question brings a smile to his face that whispers of every moment he's ever reassured her, and he leans his body in a way that will allow him to prop himself up against the pillows while keeping Agnes comfortable. She moves to the end of the bed, watching him for any sign that he might be in pain, that he might need help, or that Agnes is waking. He settles back, crosses his ankles out in front of him with a barely suppressed groan, and fixes her with a steady look of exhaustion.

"I have other suits." She thinks it's a handy quip to hide the fact that he can barely keep his eyes open, that he's actually too tired to bother. She grips the intricate rail that serves as the foot of the bed, and wonders if it will really be this easy. If she'll just climb into the other side of the bed, let Agnes sleep for as long as she can, and settle into the night like she hasn't played a part in Red's anguish, betrayal, grief…she can't imagine mourning someone who was never dead in the first place.

"She'll be up in," Desperate for a distraction, to stall, to…feel less like she's throwing dirt in all of his wounds, she looks to the clock on the nightstand. _2 a.m._ "Maybe two or three hours." His eyes have slipped closed and he simply hums to acknowledge the information. At this point, their sleep schedules probably match his own. She watches him from the foot of the bed for signs that he'll wake up again, that he'll finally unleash some sort of pent up frustration with what Mr. Kaplan has done, that he'll confide something ground-breaking to her now that they're alone, but, instead, his breathing evens out and his face grows a little more relaxed.

They're asleep, the pair of them, and Liz feels like she's intruding, which makes no sense to her as she shuts all the lights off, except the one in the bathroom, and moves to climb into bed. When she gets comfortable, she's close enough to see the slight glint of stubble growing on Red's face, to hear the near-silent huff of his breath, to see that Agnes has gathered a tiny bit of the fabric of his shirt in her tiny fist. She adores this image before her, the softness of it, the peace that rests in her when she looks between the man she had been determined to escape and the daughter that rests under his protection like she was meant to be there.

She looks at Red's still face, the apologies welling up within her as the insurmountable compassion for him tries to overwhelm her. All irrational desires, all useless, desperate needs pile up, and in those tense moments of her turmoil and his sleeping, Red is transformed into a victim. A heartbroken, self-loathing, deeply flawed man who has been tricked in one of the worst ways possible. _Were things so horrible? Was I just panicking? Is it really him that I needed to escape?_

Liz moves closer, careful of his injured body, and presses her forehead to the space just above his elbow, her hands seeking to hold onto his forearm, to cling to him in the only way she thinks she can without disturbing Agnes and hurting him further. She feels him tense, just the slightest indication that he's awakened, but then there's the feeble, exhausted calm from before; shock and awe without digestion.

And in the minutes before falling asleep, she recites a whisper, a breath of indiscernible air, a prayer and shameful plea: _I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm…_

* * *

And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be  
Right in front of me  
Talk some sense to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay. That might be a bad place to cut it off, but this chapter was turning out to be like...6,000 words so I chopped it off from a reasonable ending point. I have the third and final chapter done, so I'll post that, probably tomorrow after I edit it for mistakes and what not. Hope you enjoyed it!


	3. I Found pt. 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (See first chapter for Disclaimer) Alright, guys! This is it. I’m not sure how I feel about it, at all. But here it is. Hope you all like it. I used the same song as the last chapter, just with the rest of the lyrics.

This peace is a farce.

Agnes wakes them and, though perhaps more alarmed than he is letting on, Red is reluctant to part with her, even in her inconsolable state. He rocks her, speaks in quiet, soothing tones, and Liz attempts to tell him that she's fine. That she's hungry. That it will only take a few minutes. He _knows_ this of course, but it appears that her daughter's cries have _scared_ _him_. And Red…Red looks at her with those glassy, sleepy eyes, and silently begs her to let him be useful.

They change her diaper, an art of motion that demands they be quick but as gentle as possible to the fussy baby, and Liz is mostly observing until it comes time to feed her; the one thing Red couldn't do seeing as Liz had abandoned the formula and bottles once Agnes had been given back to her.

The smell of baby powder and wipes has filled the room, and Red is watching the two of them with an expression that makes Liz want to cry. He shouldn't be looking at her as though everything is as it should be. The thought reminds her of when they'd chased after The Djinn, how the future seemed like a mirage in their desert of desolation. There's a dreaminess to his eyes, a smile that isn't quite on his lips, but has curved them enough to imply peace. She's embarrassed by this naked adoration of his, and longs for something sarcastic to hide behind, some lewd comment, teasing words to jibe at him with, but she can't seem to speak.

"Of all the people I have loved and lost," His expression falls, eyes fond and then immediately troubled when they look to her hands. "You're the only one that has truly come back." _Truly_. Temporarily. Reluctantly. Adamantly. She can list the full cycle of her emotions when Mr. Kaplan suggested it the first time. Her fears for her daughter, her fears for Red, her fears for herself. _Fears about myself, my past, my future._ She can't contend with this look he's giving her, with the topic at hand; shying away from it in this late hour.

"Kaplan said she promised you that you wouldn't lose me," She watches his jaw clench shut and his expression darken. "Is that true?" The when's and why's, the circumstances that facilitated such a promise being made aren't lost on her. She's fully aware of how she'd been the past handful of months towards him, how they'd gone back to their respective roles, and how she _hated_ it.

Tom had been there wanting a future with her, Red had presented her with a map of the enemy, of the war they were supposedly still fighting, and she'd been handed a life she didn't choose; a path she couldn't wipe clean or reclaim. Part of her would never admit to missing their time on the run, but when he went about his business after she'd been exonerated, she'd felt un-moored and, dare she say it, left out. They were back to the same old games.

_We're gonna make a great team._

Day one.

And they _had_ been a great team.

An amazing team.

"Yes," He grinds the word out with a barely suppressed growl to his voice, a furrow forming on his brow. It's enough that he's admitted it, that he remembers the moment. She watches him think, watches him wrestle with whatever it is, and that silence from before stretches on again until morning.

* * *

And I'll use you as a makeshift gauge  
Of how much to give and how much to take  
I'll use you as a warning sign  
That if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind

* * *

They move a few times, different safe houses of nondescript luxury, to an apartment with stained walls and popcorn ceilings, and end up in a vacant Victorian somewhere in the suburbs of Virginia. It's creaky, but tasteful, and its smell reminds her of a childhood friend's home; the kind of scent born of a house well-occupied.

Of kids once running in and out of the back door.

Of food cooking and burning.

Of candles being lit.

Of floors being scrubbed.

Of countless celebrations.

It's the conglomeration that makes it unique.

How every house seems to have its own scent.

It's in that house, with its warmth and security, that Elizabeth realizes just what she and Kaplan have done to Red.

Liz has made it clear she's in Kaplan's corner after witnessing one too many dark looks from Red, fighting for the woman whose plan got her out of an impossible situation, who kept her promise to Raymond, who ensured two week of motherhood uninterrupted by a life she couldn't run from. So, while she wouldn't let Mr. Kaplan out of her sight, Red wasn't eager to let her or Agnes out of his. As a rule, Red no longer takes Dembe with him on every outing, and when he does, he stations Baz and a few guys at the house. While he says it's for her and Agnes's safety, she knows that it's to ensure she doesn't disappear again.

Her permanent babysitters have put her and Kaplan on edge, and the fights that have ensued are none too gentle as Red becomes more and more indifferent to her reasoning, and less inviting of compromise. He'll take Agnes on little walks on the porch, around the backyard, when he isn't talking to her. Her little girl seems to calm him, seems to draw out of him a happiness he is starving for. And in some way, they always end up back where they started: _him speaking with her._

He's not terribly unwelcome when he finds her in the study tonight. Agnes is asleep upstairs with Mr. Kaplan keeping watch, and Dembe is catching some well-deserved rest as well. They haven't argued in four days, and that's largely due to the fact that Red hasn't had to go away again. She still hasn't told the team, a fact that seems to sit on the edges of every conversation she has with Red and Dembe. The two of them, respectively, think she should tell them, but she doesn't know how.

He's rumpled and fidgety when he finally sits down on the opposite end of the chaise lounge she's commandeered with her old copy of _The Wizard of Oz_. He adjusts his vest, checks the sleeves of his shirt that he's rolled up to his elbows, and then finally settles for clasping his hands in his lap; hunching forward a little so that he can stare at the clock ticking on the mantle behind her.

"Is there something you want?" Curt and just a little impatient, Liz finds herself staring at him as he seems to lose himself in thought. The day after she made her big re-entry, he'd been subdued and attentive; always helping with Agnes, always asking before he went to pick her up if it was okay to hold her, always just a little startled when Liz walked into the room. It was three days later that he sort of settled into a numbed state of resignation about the whole thing; caught between self-preservation and an undying desire to martyr himself for her.

"There was a sheep farmer in Hungary, Tulek Szigeti, who saved my life from a few of the Bratva back when I was gaining notoriety." He begins without preamble. She watches him as he watches the time, and then is captured by the small, sad smile that he tosses her way. The moment feels oddly reminiscent of the story he'd told her while they were hiding beneath that bar, dressed as Police Officers, and watching the news.

"I had managed to talk my way into a trap and was being badly beaten when he exited the bar a ways down the street." At first, Liz had felt a smirk curve her lips at the thought of him talking himself into trouble instead of out. She'd always wondered what he must have been like when he'd had to make a name for himself. But, now, she frowned; uncertainty welling up inside of her.

"All I remember hearing was this man's voice yelling, 'Rendőrség, állj!' Police, stop!" Red shakes his head and laughs a little, something like admiration settling in his expression as he recalls the moment. "See, he'd had this cane, and it must have looked like a baton in the dark, because the guys fled, and the next thing I know, I wake up to this big, white dog licking my face and Tulek with his missing teeth, smiling down at me." He goes on to explain that Tulek was fascinated by Red, who'd seemingly enchanted his dog, a notoriously protective breed, in his sleep. Elizabeth isn't really surprised that he'd been able to be charming even when he was unconscious.

"It was a Kuvasz. The breed had all but been wiped out by the end of World War II but Tulek had one named Cézár." He pauses, looks down at his hands, and frowns. Liz feels the tension in her shoulders and realizes that she's been waiting for some sort of revelation to begin piecing itself together for the end of this story, and that she isn't prepared. "Cézár had been dividing his time between Tulek's flock and my bedside for the two days I was unconscious. Tulek told me I was under Cézár's protection, that, somehow, he recognized me as something that needed guarding. I was _so_ attached to that dog, and I even joked that I would steal him when I left, but Tulek," She watches Red raise his fist and shake it in the air as if he were holding something.

"He just raised his fist and waved his cane at me, laughing; _always_ laughing. Turns out, Tulek was beaten within an inch of his life a few hours before he was liberated from Mauthausen. Broke his back, a femur, some ribs…" He looks at her, his brow furrowing a bit as he studies her face to make sure she's following along. She shrugs and shakes her head a little. "It was a concentration camp in Upper Austria." As the gravity of the story starts to weigh on her, she shifts, indicates for him to go on, and sits up a bit more to appear engaged and not withdrawn.

"Anyway, Tulek was originally from Poland, but he took another name when he was in the hospital. He said he had barely gotten his life in order as hired help on this farm when Cézár was given to him as a gift from another farmer down the way. Besides the couple that had owned the farm before him, that dog was the only family Tulek had left in the world." Liz found herself dividing her attention between the small tells in Red's demeanor and the story he was weaving.

Frustration had begun to well up inside of her, and she was trying to distract herself from it. His stories had always been a defense mechanism, a smoke and mirrors trick, and so she watched that small tick under his eye, how he clenched his jaw, pursed his lips at times, looked down at the floor as if he were guilty or ashamed.

"It took me a week to get back on my feet, and another two until I could help out enough to feel useful. I stayed there for longer than I should have. I knew it. Tulek knew it. But the dog was by my side when I was out in the yard or the pastures, and he'd follow me to the end of the road in the mornings to fetch the milk. An extremely vigilant, quiet animal, always watching. Until, one night, he wouldn't stop barking." Dread pools in Liz's stomach as she watches Red swallow, his hands wringing themselves in his lap. "Tulek didn't own a gun and I had lost mine the night he saved me. When they came at us, we could do little to defend ourselves against them. But Tulek had his ways, and I had mine."

"We ended up in the barn after picking them off one by one as we swept the yard from opposite ends. Cézár was still barking from the pasture where he watched the flock. Everything besides his barking was still, and one moment, Tulek was congratulating me, thanking me for protecting his farm, and the next, he was pushing me out of the path of a bullet." Red draws in a deep breath and glances down at his hands, askance in the dimness of the study.

"He went down. I managed to launch myself at our attacker before he could get another shot off. We started grappling for the gun, but I wasn't in any real shape to be fighting hand-to-hand like that. I ended up on my back, trying to get my legs up to displace the man's weight, and then Cézár was just _there_ , tearing into my assailant. I got a hold of the gun, but it was no use. I'd been ready to fire when I stumbled to my feet, and Cézár, he turned on me, his face and chest covered in blood."

"I said his name, once, and all he did was snarl at me, and I kept thinking, please, _please_ , don't make me do this. But then I lowered the gun, and he flipped his ears up a little, and the violence just _fell_ away from his face." Red's shoulders drop when he finishes his sentence as if he were literally dropping the weight of the armor he imagined Cézár had been carrying. "Tulek was dead by the time he hit the floor. A shot to center mass." He winces, points to the center of his chest and rests his finger there for a moment. Liz wants to say something encouraging, wants to comfort him, wants to breach the small wall that seems to be between them at every turn. But there's something about Red right now that stops her; a burning kind of guilt she can't make sense of that's seeping out of him and into the space between them.

"I buried him and hid the bodies. Made sure it looked like nothing had happened there. But Cézár wouldn't leave Tulek's graveside. I tried to get him to eat, to drink, but the dog just ignored me, even barked at me when I got too close to where I had buried Tulek. For three days, I watched Cézár lie there, ignoring the sheep, ignoring me, ignoring life. I couldn't get him away from the person that would eventually be the death of him, so I left." He looks up at her again, his features softening for the first time since he started telling this story, and she reflects a small smile back to him. "He was the most amazing animal I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. Intelligent, loyal, protective, gentle," He cuts off, endeavors to meet her eye, and then says, "Fierce, and then gentle again."

She frowns a little, remembers how he had become closed off and then affectionate, sad and then jovial, contemplative and then boisterous. She knows that her "death" had almost killed him, that he'd gone off and frozen all of his transactions, his accounts, his business dealings, and then just reappeared to go on the rampage for those responsible for her death. Kaplan had been sparse on the details, at times, of course, not wanting to stress Liz out, and having still been recuperating from a C-section at the time, she was grateful. But this…if he felt like his loyalty, which was undoubtedly the topic here, would be the death of him…if this image of the dog next the grave wasn't enough to gut her-

"You see yourself as the dog." She mutters the words quietly, aiming to appear understanding of his pain. But his face changes to something like a wince before he shakes his head softly, and turns his body so that his arm is resting along the back of the chaise.

"No, Elizabeth, _you_ remind me of Cézár." She is trapped by his words. Trapped by his eyes and the storminess of his expression. By the confused dip of his brow and the desperation of his parted lips. There is nothing about him that is idle or calm, and yet he sits across from her; a contained inferno of whatever it is he thinks he's done. "I've been arrogant in assuming that I could protect you from everything. That if I ensured that you were cared for, nurtured, your education was seen to, and that you were sheltered from the darkness of the world I could keep you safe from the demons of the past." His voice is rough as he looks off into an unknowable distance; haunted and weighed down by memory. She feels that familiar frustration in her gut, the simmering anger that screams _But it's my life we're talking about!_

"You surprised me. You fought me on every safety precaution, and I keep wondering if I'd just lowered the gun, if I'd laid out the dangers so you didn't think _I_ was one, if I'd somehow made you see that I wasn't the enemy…" She had been treating him like he was against her. That he was holding her back, that he was endangering her. "But then I think, maybe I am your enemy. Maybe enemies don't always work against you in the obvious ways. So I-" He's struggling against making sense of it all, shaking his head, biting his lower lip. The words, for once, don't seem to come out right.

"I underestimated your bravery, your determination, your fire…and, even now, I-" Helplessly, he looks to her, his eyes searching her face as if he'll find some sort of resolve there; an answer he had previously ignored. "There are things I can hardly think about let alone speak of when it comes to the things you want to know" Looking at him, she finally begins to understand why he hasn't told her things. That maybe all of this isn't about keeping her in the dark out of the need to protect her, but to spare her; and in the same breath, spare _him._

She wants to know everything. Of course she does. There's a disconnect between herself and the past, between who he remembers, what he remembers, and everything that has happened since then. While she recognizes it as her past, it is, at the same time, separate from her because she does not own all of those memories.

_It allows for me to be clinical and callous._

" _Why_ would you come back, Lizzie? Why would you come back? Why would you do that?" Her breath is gone. There's ice in her veins and a pressure in her chest. _Why?_ Her courage is scattered. She tries to answer him, tries to find the words to describe the moment she decided to walk out that door with Kaplan, when she walked away from what could have been a new start. Of all the questions she thought he would ask her, these weren't the ones.

"Why? _God_ , you're unbelievable, you know that?" She stands, having never mastered the art of being irritated and staying seated at the same time, and crosses her arms, looking down on him as she wrestles with the tears in her eyes and the lump in the back of her throat. _I gave up that safety for you! For you!_ The words rage within her but she clamps her mouth shut as he stares at her, and, suddenly, he is transformed into the image of who he'd been when he admitted to ending Sam's life. She takes a step back from from this display of fear, honesty, and wreckage. Liz doesn't know how to fight him when he's like this; gaping, an open wound bared before an attack.

"I stood at your grave and promised you that I wouldn't be in Agnes's life so that she could remain safe, that I would stay away," His eyes never leave her face, except to stare over her shoulder at one point, the memory ripping into him. "Because, you had _every right_ to deny me access to your daughter the day she was born. I am _death_ to her, Elizabeth. Death to _you_ , to Dembe and his family, to Kate, to Baz, to _everyone_ on the task force." His voice breaks at the end, his chin wobbles, and she feels a deeper kind of grief when she sees the glint in Red's eyes; that dark, inner labyrinth of the hatred he bears for himself.

"Red, that's not-" She doesn't know how to finish the sentence. _Not what? Fair? True? Accurate?_ That twitch of his is back from before, and he looks away from her and into the shadows of the room.

"You were safe. Free from all of this, from your past, from your present, from… _me_." She feels his last comment like an accusation, feels it like a sickness in her bones. She had spent too much time panicking, trying to get ahead in this game she'd been tossed into, when she really needed to just _stop and look_ at things, to trust him about it all. _The rest…it will come._ Her training, her instincts…all of that had gone out the window the moment she saved Tom and held him captive, and then again the moment she found out she was pregnant. She didn't wear survival with grace the way Red did. "You were-"

"Wrong." She cuts him off and steps towards him, stopping just beyond his knees. Liz extends a hand to him. "I was wrong, Raymond." He takes her hand after the barest hint of hesitation, rises, and then she has him, her hands grasping his between the two of them; trapped against her chest and pounding heart. "I came back because that's what you do when the person you love is _killing_ himself."

The corners of his lips drag down and for moment, she doesn't dare to breathe. The words that have come out of her mouth have left her desperate in a way she's only felt a few times; the echo of emotions and trauma, of moments when she'd though she'd lose him forever. Even when she'd been shocked and angry, even when she'd been ready to ignore him for the rest of her life, Liz still cared what happened to him, and now… _now there's a whole different reason why I can't let him go._

"I love you, and what you said when we were in that art exhibit…you're right." When she'd taken his hand and kissed his cheek, when she'd tried to reassure him, when she placed her hand on his shoulder to root him in her forgiveness. "What you say sometimes _does_ scare me, and I know I'm not the most reliable listener, but I haven't gotten to adjust, and I'm just now beginning to realize that it's not so much about adjusting as it is about taking the moments you're given." _Wisdom is wasted on the old. All you can do is part with it._ She understands how he goes on while he lives in fear, while he's hunted. She understands that he loves life because he knows how short it can be, and she's been selfishly trying to shape her life into an ideal that might not exist.

 _And I've blamed him every step of the way._ It was true that everything about her life and about herself had imploded the moment he was there to rip away the veil. The chaos doubled, tripled, and became an exhaustive whirlwind of danger, violence, and uncertainty. Thinking back, _no wonder_ he had been reluctant to reveal more to her. As she gained knowledge of her past, of her heritage, of herself, her life became a larger mess; a pervading darkness that, until she'd begun poking around the edges of her perfect life, had remained at bay. And while he was certainly a catalyst in the toppling of her structured life, it had already been a lie before he got there.

"It's easy to blame you, because you just take it." He looks at her, askance and paling for a moment, his eyes pained and accepting. Liz deliberately softens her voice, her expression, the grip she has on his hands without letting go, and draws in a steadying breath. "It's like you… _welcome_ being blamed." With a dizzying sensation, she watches him nod; a half-movement of admission that leaves her feeling as though she's sinking. Frowning, she catches the slight movement of his heartbeat beneath his shirt and she drops one of his hands to place her own to his chest; applying a light pressure as it pounds beneath her touch.

"You're a sin-eater because you think you, somehow, deserve to be punished for the sins you've absorbed." She remembers calling him damaged, remembers looking at him with tears in her eyes after she'd saved his life that night, after he'd demanded she never do that again, and she knows that the worst thing that could ever happen to Raymond Reddington is exist in world without her. _Because that's what he's been doing…existing._ Liz leans up, her eyes closing slightly, and brushes her lips against his; feels the quiet breath he takes in response. "Whatever it is you're trying to atone for because of me, _stop._ "

She kisses him again, a fiercer, desperate thing that draws them in closer; his fingers carding through her hair in a delicate way that contrasts with how strongly she wishes to grip onto him and never let him go. They part and he leans his forehead against hers, and she keeps whispering, "Just stop. Stop punishing yourself." And she can feel his forehead wrinkle as if he's shutting his eyes tightly against the world. He surrounds her right now; his presence, his smell, the war within him. "I forgive you. For whatever you've done or helped do, for whatever it is you feel responsible for…I _forgive you_." She pulls back so that he can look her in the eye, the importance of him seeing her contrition on her face a necessity in this moment.

"And I'm _so sorry_ for going away, for taking myself away from you, for shutting you out, for discarding _us_ like it didn't matter, because it _does_ matter." _It means everything._ As if to quiet her, sensing her mounting distress and the dismay she must have written in her eyes, he lifts his hand up to her face to draw away the hair that has fallen into it; the wreckage and aching of two decades clear in the expression he's wearing.

It's a raw sort of honesty that makes her feel tired without ever having born it herself and she can't imagine how heavy Raymond Reddington's burdens are, but she wants to try to lessen the load; to take some of it off his shoulders. He brushes a thumb across her cheek, and Liz realizes that the tears she's been trying to stave off have started to fall. So, instead of watching his unarmored features, she closes her eyes and leans into him; his arms enclosing her immediately.

"There are some things I'm not…strong enough to handle." His voice rumbles from the back of his throat; thick and wavering. One of her ears is pressed against his chest and she feels the baritone reverberate through her, hears it as though she were underwater. She takes a deep breath; wanting to remain ensconced by him and the comfort of his embrace for as long as she can. "Grieving you again is one of those things, Elizabeth." She turns her face into his shirt, extracts her arms from between them and wraps them around his chest. She hangs onto him as her heartrate soars and her breathing becomes a little more difficult. This entire conversation feels like a marathon.

"Okay."

It's not much in the way of a promise. It's not enough to say that she won't leave him again because they don't know if that's a choice she has anymore. _She could be taken_. That much was clear. And in the months that pass, as betrayals begin to heal, as understandings come about, as secrets are revealed, their unitary existence is repaired. They steal all the moments life gives them and barter for the ones it doesn't. There's wisdom and naivety between them as they continue to challenge one another.

Between stark admissions of love.

Between him hating himself for the vulnerability that his need for her causes them both.

Between her fight for the truth and her unwavering commitment to him.

Between a growing baby that wants and seeks their love and affection.

Between one war and the next.

Nothing is easy and hardly any of it makes sense at times.

But it's right.

* * *

And I found love where it wasn't supposed to be  
Right in front of me  
Talk some sense to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is literally the fic that would not end, haha. I hope you enjoyed it! Again, just as a plug, check out the band Amber Run. Some of their songs are perf. Thank you for reading, and if you time, let me know what you think!

**Author's Note:**

> welp there it is. I may proof read it a bit more because I'm writing this on my phone while waiting for Record Sale Day to start haha let me know what you all think! And, seriously, listen to Kodaline. They rock.


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